Decorative light strings are used to communicate a joy of a holiday season, to draw attention to merchandise, or to simply decorate or adorn an object. Decorative light strings can be used both indoors and outdoors. Decorative light strings have been used residentially to adorn trees, shrubs, and houses. Commercial businesses can use decorative light strings to provide festive atmospheres at their places of business.
Some such decorations can involve many decorative light strings. These light strings are often connected in series fashion. Series-connected decorative light strings receive their operating power from a connector at a first end and deliver power to strings connected to a second end of the decorative light string. Thus, a first decorative light string in a series-connected chain of decorative light strings carries the operating current for the entire series-connected chain of decorative light strings. Conversely, a last decorative light string in the series-connected chain will only carry the operating current for that last decorative light string.
Light strings traditionally have been constructed using incandescent bulbs. Light strings that use incandescent bulbs often have been powered using AC line voltages. In more recently times, Light Emitting Diodes (LED) have been used in light strings. LEDs usually require low-voltage DC power for illumination. Therefore, decorative light strings that use LEDs can be powered by low-voltage power levels. Providing a low-voltage power level to a series-connected chain of decorative light strings, however, can result in high current levels. Such high current levels can cause voltage droop along the series-connected chain, which in turn can cause the LEDs of the last decorative light string to be noticeably dimmer than the LEDs of the first decorative light string. Thus, a method of providing power to long chains of series-connected LED light strings that minimizes the dimming of the last decorative light string of the chain is desired.